Bio Engineer Archive

Publish 17 Cloning

the new cloning system works... as a boolean value. details follow:

DNA now shows stats that seem to make sense. specifically:
resists are no longer shown (these seem to be governed solely by the fortitude stat).
specials are not currently showing on DNA (this is a larger issue that has been brought to the attention of the devs).

clones now show stats that seem to make sense (these are explained below):
Volume: 1
Object Creator: player_name
Serial Number: (number)
Difficulty Level:
Health:
Health Regen:
Armor Effectiveness:
To Hit:
Defense Value:
State Resistance: %
Critical Hit Chance: %
Aggro Bonus: %
Damage:
Special Attack 1: ---
Special Attack 2: ---
Ranged Attack: Boolean

NOTE: Armor Effectiveness seems to match the values for player armor.
Armor Value = Resist (with thanks to Brutus_Krylop of bloodfin)
1000 = 10.5%
2000 = 20.0%
3000 = 28.5%
4000 = 36.0%
5000 = 42.5%
6000 = 48.0%
7000 = 52.5%
8000 = 56.0%
9000 = 58.5%
10000 = 60%

the problem is that 'seems' is all inferential. creatures have resists, but these values are not visible outside of combat spam (and then reverse-mathing it out to determine an 'armor value'). some creatures have specials, but these are not visible, either.

the patch notes indicate (listed in the order presented):
Hardiness: Health
Endurance: Health Regen Rate
Fortitude: General Protection (Base Armor)
Dexterity: Defense Value
Cleverness: To Hit Value
Power: Min/Max Damage
Intellect: Reduces the effectiveness of intimidated, stun, dizzy, and blinded state effects.*
Fierceness: Adds a small chance for each attack to be a critical hit.
Dependability: Adds a small chance for the creature to absorb half damage on a hit (critical save).
Courage: Aggro generation bonus added to normal attacks.


unfortunately, these stats don't seem to be in any order that makes sense... some of them appear to be in the order of their display on clones (new display values). none of them seem to be in any 'slot pair' order (hardiness/fortitude = physical, etc). is this an artifact of the patch notes? does it indicate new 'associations' between values (example: are hardiness/endurance the new pair for the 'physical slot' in crafting... or did we keep hardiness/fortitude and just list the values arbitrarily?)? we’ll have to test it and see. we can hope that the patch notes are simply in an arbitrary order, and the old associations between the stats and slot-pairs are still working as they always have.


some of these terms seem... odd.
intellect lists as "State Resist: %", which is contrary to the note accompanying the stat (which states that it is NOT a state resist %, but rather a resistance to the EFFICACY of a state). it should probably list as “State Effect Reduction: %”.
crit hits may or may not be working... but it's too early to say.
crit saves? as above, haven't seen one yet, but more testing is definitely needed.
aggro generation: is this a 'taunt bonus'? does it apply a % increase OVER damage dealt to the 'hate' generated on a target?
defense: is this a 'melee/ranged defense' value? if so, how much effect does this have, given the 'angry bag' mechanics of the CL system?

is this system final?
currently, movement speed is tied to the clone's SKIN, not the DNA used. it'd be REALLY nice to have movement speed experimentable, and remove it from the clone skin. with some of the new values seemingly capped below an effective level (see below), it’d be nice to have this, a useful stat, added (or to replace one of the stats that isn’t offering a clear benefit).


before we embrace the new system, it’d be instructive to look at:
some problems so far:

quality:
DNA sampling seems to be yielding worse samples (quality-wise):
mBioE sampling CL18 ro-roos: 11 AA, 9 HQ, 14 VHQ samples.

DNA stats seem odd:
this could be due to varying resists on mobs (currently invisible). example: arachne warriors seem to have higher fortitude than higher CL arachnes. however, there are other inconsistencies (which should be fairly evident to anyone who takes a look at the spreadsheet of DNA and cloning I’ve put together from TC-Bria).

ranged attack:
many creatures that use ranged attacks do not show a ranged attack on the DNA samples, regardless of quality. arachne drones DO show ranged attack on DNA samples. DNA with ranged attack can be used to make clones with a ranged attack. these clones can be tamed and, given the CH skill required, can be trained in the ‘ranged attack’ command. currently, this command does NOT work in combat.

limits to values:
fortitude: this seems to be based on the resists of the donor... which are invisible. if this is the case, then the DNA values (and resultant clones) that I have sampled probably make sense. I think it’s still a good idea to track this. additionally:
fort 500 = armor 3000. or so.
fort 750 = 4200. ish.
if this progression continues, I don’t see any way to reach the maximum armor value of 10000... which is a 60% resist... even with a fort 1000 value.
intellect: this value is hideously low for all samples I’ve gathered. the ‘state effect reduction %’ seems to be too low to bother with, based on current results.
dependability: as with intellect... this affects the ‘crit save’, and it seems to clone out to well below 0.5%.
courage: while I’m still not sure what this does... it doesn’t seem to offer a substantial ‘aggro increase’ (less than 1%)... in part because, like intellect and dependability, this stat is abysmally low.

other bugs
regen lists as (example) 10 on the deed. when tamed, it lists as (using the same example) 100 in the datapad.

and finally... between May 20th and now...
testing and feedback
this is going Live, folks. get what info you can from here, then break what you can with the code... and post your results.

want the numbers? check out the spreadsheet values (excel version) from TC-Bria testing.

NOW AVAILABLE: spreadsheet values (the .PDF version) from TC-Bria testing.

Message Edited by lammergeier on 05-27-2005 12:15 AM

Thank you very much for all this work. It's a lot to digest at the moment.

Thanks Lam, you've put in a lot of work.

Looks like we'll get to see how it works...going live today.

Nice work. Have you noticed the large statistical variance we had prior to the CU?

For example, YMP DNA. Hardiness, Dex and Intellect could vary between 780ish and 660ish on any given sample. Even within the same sample it wasnt uncommon to have a 660 Hardiness and a 780 Dexterity.

I should be able to test this tonight myself but, just curious.

Thanks for taking the time to type up that spreadsheet.

I'm curious though, what's the point of Creature Knowledge now? Knowing the resists was one of the most important aspect to pet creation before. Do clones even have specific armor resists now, at least separate Energy & Kinetic values?

Well done. I didn't realize this was going live so soon until I logged in last night and my guildies told me about it.

So much for testing and bug finding but the information you've come up with in a very short time is astounding. Again, well done.

Noobie here...sorry if this is a stupid question. Do BE's create creatures for sale or for their own use? Don't you need to be a CH to control a creature or is that only for non-BE creatures?

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Sofia7 wrote:
Noobie here...sorry if this is a stupid question. Do BE's create creatures for sale or for their own use? Don't you need to be a CH to control a creature or is that only for non-BE creatures?

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the CL of a pet determines whether or not it can be used.

less than CL10? nonCH. anyone can use these clones, provided they aren't in an aggro skin.

CL10-70? CH. depending on CH skill, these can be tamed and used by creature handlers.

CL70-75? unusable. you can resample the deed for DNA and try again.

over CL75? makes a nice decoration. you can't resample it, CH's can't use it, and hopefully you've learned from the process.

BioE's can't DIRECTLY influence the CL of a clone... use low-level DNA, and you'll get low-level clones. experiment on this DNA? the CL rises. use better DNA? the CL rises. only through experimentation and experience can a BioE make clones within a predictable CL range.

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Kivrin wrote:
Thanks for taking the time to type up that spreadsheet.

I'm curious though, what's the point of Creature Knowledge now? Knowing the resists was one of the most important aspect to pet creation before. Do clones even have specific armor resists now, at least separate Energy & Kinetic values?

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we don't know.

special attacks and resistances are currently not visible. the devs are aware of this. I expect to see specials and resists in the future, but I don't know when. currently, creatures DO have resists (and a few creatures have specials, judging by the combat spam and experiences from the chewy side of intimate engagement with wild animals).

example (see the spreadsheet for details): Sawtooth has a 35% resist (I know this because I punched it and checked the combat spam). this works out to an armor value of about 3900 or so. DNA from Sawtooth has a fortitude of about 650. clones made from this DNA, with an experimented fortitude of about 650, show an "Armor Effectiveness" value of about 3900. 35% resist in, 35% resist out.

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supersparc wrote:
Nice work. Have you noticed the large statistical variance we had prior to the CU?

For example, YMP DNA. Hardiness, Dex and Intellect could vary between 780ish and 660ish on any given sample. Even within the same sample it wasnt uncommon to have a 660 Hardiness and a 780 Dexterity.

I should be able to test this tonight myself but, just curious.

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the spreadsheet has 70ish DNA entries from seven different 'donors'. I don't see the wide variance you described... but it is a small sample (with TC-Bria crashing frequently, I only had the opportunity to collect about 1000 data values). I tried to cover a spread of DNA (CL18-CL62elite), and I tried to get a significant dataset within each donor set.

I DO notice that hardiness (when it isn't capped) doesn't seem to improve with DNA quality as much as other stats do... in the lower CL's, many of the AA samples beat the HQ and VHQ samples for hardiness.

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ArthurDentOnBria wrote:

Yea, great job Lammer. Some of the values on your spreadsheet point to bugged dna however, and that is something you guys are going to need to get fixed (with any luck). Not good that you can sample from mid-level creatures and hit the cap on heath.

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I think the cap might be due to the "elite" status of the donors.

I didn't get capped DNA on endor when I was sampling arachnes (CL60's). of course, once I got to testing, travel was down, so I was stuck on kashyyyk between crashes.

note that both Steel Claw and Sawtooth are elites... and it makes a certain amount of sense that their MUCH higher health be translated into high hardiness.

a single point of experimentation, though, brought the initial assembly values of 1149 down to 1000.

just checked Sechs (my Live BioE)... his EXISTING DNA has converted to the new values.

edit: and I THINK his ancient kaadu converted, too.

Message Edited by lammergeier on 05-26-2005 01:50 PM